The Application of Visual Vocabulary for ESL Students’ Vocabulary Learning

Vocabulary is often neglected despite being one of the most crucial aspects of language acquisition.Due to the lack of emphasis on vocabulary learning, ESL students have issues in learning the English language effectively, which resulted in low-level language proficiency.Hence, this paper attempts to address this problem by introducing Visual Vocabulary to learn the target words.The main research question: How effective is the use of the Visual Vocabulary to learn vocabulary for Form Two learners?To investigate the effectiveness of the use of the Visual Vocabulary, 60 students of Form Two from sub-urban schools in Ipoh and Teluk Intan, Perak, were selected.These students were instructed to learn a total of 45 target words and Visual Vocabulary was applied to assist them to learn and simultaneously understand the meaning of the target words.The independent sample t-test, paired sample t-test, and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the scores of the pre and post-tests.The score comparison and total improvement score in percentage were also presented.The paired sample t-test results are (t=-17.85,df=29, p<.05) for the experimental group and (t=-4.85,df=29, p<.05) for the control group.Based on the stated results, both experimental and control groups improved significantly (p=.000*) in the post-test with a mean difference of 15.62.The results of this study confirm the effectiveness of Visual Vocabulary in learning and understanding the target words.This approach is proven to increase the success rate of vocabulary learning among ESL learners.